


meanwhile the world goes on

by seraf



Series: war, illuminated [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Force-Sensitive Clones, Hurt/Comfort, JUST GUYS BEIN DUDES, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Order 66, Sharing a Bed, Tatooine (Star Wars), but sometimes we got some good, i really went ham on the fic tropes here, occasional ship critical, sometimes u gotta look at the unhealthy power dynamic here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-15 13:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17529560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraf/pseuds/seraf
Summary: different codywan snippets, while i'm organizing all my work.





	1. Chapter 1

for the first time, he wishes their bodies  _weren’t_ so well-designed. his feet continue to go through the motions, the treadmill set at one of the highest speeds it gets to, but it doesn’t  _hurt._

sweat drips down his back, and the cold air stings his lungs, though, and that feels real enough. he can pretend, now, the clenching feeling settling behind his ribs is from oxygen debt, rather than the facts of the matter not sitting well with him.

he keeps running.

his body starts to inform him he needs water. vehemently, he ignores it, finding some sort of grim satisfaction in the fatigue beginning to settle into his body, his head aching as he keeps his eyes focused on the training room wall. he can feel the skin on the back of his heel beginning to be rubbed raw. if he doesn’t stop for a moment, adjust his boots or tape it, it’ll probably become a blister.

he keeps running.

‘cody? ‘ 

it’s all it takes - there’s not been any interruption for the hours he’s been in here, and he glances towards the doors at the familiar voice, and his timing is thrown off - the treadmill’s moving too fast, and the stumble makes him keep going backwards, the air knocked out of him hard when his back hits the ground.

spots swim in front of his vision as he stares blankly up at the training room ceiling, chest heaving now that it finally gets the chance to catch his breath. distantly, he hears the sound of the treadmill being turned off, footsteps approaching him.

rex crouches beside him. ‘ hey, ner’vod. ‘ he offers cody a hand up, and after a moment, cody takes it, rex pulling him to sit up, one hand steady and supporting his shoulder, keeping him upright. rex’s face is calm, and there’s no pity there, and for that, cody is glad. he doesn’t think he could deal with pity right now.

slowly, he lets himself lean forwards, forehead pressing into rex’s shoulder, exhaustion hitting him hard. distantly, he’s aware he’s shaking slightly. how long was he running, again? there’s a cool sting of air against the sweat soaking through his blacks.

rex steadies him, one hand anchoring cody at the back of his head.

‘ am i supposed to just … act like nothing happened, rex? ‘ cody says eventually, his weight still resting on his brother. it didn’t sit well with him. none of it. he had gotten on coruscant, thinking he was going to have to be reassigned to a new general, just to freeze on the walkway. 

kenobi was standing there - beardless, hairless, for some reason, but undoubtedly  _kenobi._ his general. alive.

he had been dead when cody had been sent away, a few weeks ago.

( cody had wanted to go to the funeral. had begun to turn coruscant-bound, when the council contacted him, told him he was unable to go. gave him a new mission. and later, kenobi had told him that it had been his plan, to fake his death. that cody being sent away had just been part of the deception. )

‘ what do i do, rex? ‘ he asks, eventually. the training room is cold, now, with the adrenaline slowly beginning to wear off, the air stinging at the sweat where it soaked through his blacks.

‘ i don’t know, cody, ‘ rex says, but he’s  _there,_ still, solid and holding him upright, tugging him close when cody shudders. cody rests his forehead heavily on rex’s shoulder.  _how am i supposed to trust him again, rex?_ he thinks, but doesn’t say. ‘ but i’m here, vod. ‘ 

there’s another question nagging on cody’s mind.

 _why didn’t he trust_ me?


	2. Chapter 2

ponds’ short-cropped hair has grown now, long enough to be clearly black and enough that it can be smoothed down when fingers are run through it. he usually keeps it shaved down, same as his general, but it’s something he’s neglected of late.

mostly because he’s still unconscious. has been ever since windu spacewalked, pulling his body out of the void where fett the younger and his crew had left him for dead.

( it hadn’t been boba, and windu didn’t blame him for ponds’ state. he had seen boba hesitate, had argued for him in court while ponds’ heart stopped and was started again, as his breathing evened out. had done it all for nothing, in the end, the military court ruling jango fett’s son a war criminal, and, because he was a clone, an adult, and to be tried as one. )

he looks wrong with hair.

yes, there was something to be said for the impermanence of personal image and the body through time, but the clones didn’t choose the features of their bodies or their armor lightly. it wasn’t right, to see their one last bastion of  _choice_ taken away from them. ( ponds had told him once that he preferred his hair shaved down; it didn’t soak in the heat like jango’s black hair was wont to, and it didn’t irritate underneath a helmet. )

it’s an irrational course of action for a jedi, especially a master, and yet - here they stand.

he tries to visit ponds as often as he’s able, the clone commander permanently set up in the jedi medbay. that in and of itself is unusual for a general; the no-attachments rule is meant to be passed down to their men, as well. ponds should be marked as lost, and mace should proceed with the 91st without him.

but something in him will not allow him that.

he thinks it’s the force.

( he  _hopes_ it is. if it is not, he’s not sure he has the words for what it might be, but he has a sneaking suspicion. it’s not just that ponds is a good leader, or a selfless one. mace windu has allowed himself  _friends,_ at least, in people like kit fisto or in his old master, and ponds  _is_ a friend, has become one despite all the war. )

( but … perhaps something exists past that. )

( it is not for him to dwell on; not now, after all, ponds is still not yet awake. may not ever wake. but it looms, an unfortunate truth he will have to come to terms with one day, one way or another. )

this is the irrational part of it; is that master kenobi finds his robe folded neatly over the back of a medbay chair, and finds mace himself with his tunic sleeves rolled up past the elbows to keep from getting wet, sitting carefully perched on the end of the thin medbay cot, ponds’ head in his lap, and holding a razor. ( the razor is his own, at least. having to buy or borrow one might just raise even more questions from people. )

ponds’ hair is shaved clean, mace finishing the last touches on it, carefully washing off the remnants of cut hair.

kenobi doesn’t ask, and windu is grateful to him for that, at least, simply taking up one of the other chairs as windu drags the damp cloth over ponds’ skull once more, careful not to jostle the breathing mask over his nose and mouth. he folds it in on itself, placing it on one of the nearby counters, and looks up at the other master as a cleaning droid bustles by, picking it up on its rounds.

kenobi’s face is etched with a quiet sorrow, and he rests his hand on mace’s knee, warm through the fabric. mace can almost feel him choosing his words. ( though - maybe it’s more simple than that; he knows kenobi, knows the distant expression in his eyes and the way he strokes over his beard now. )

eventually, he speaks, in the voice of a man sharing a secret. ‘ master windu … i am sorry. if it is any comfort, though - i may know how you feel. ‘

gossip spreads easily in the grand army of the republic. mace tries to believe that he’s above it, but he can’t help but hear some of it sometimes, winding its way through the ranks. even if he hadn’t, he’s worked with the 212th before, and he sees cody and kenobi, a solid pair, always shoulder-to-shoulder. cody smoothing the lines beginning to develop in kenobi’s forehead, kenobi bringing a broad grin more often than not to the commander’s face.

there’s … he wouldn’t call it a shatterpoint, per se. but there’s a divergence of roads, here.

he can accept the comfort from kenobi. accept the empathy in their shared situations. ( commander cody, after all, has spent his fair share of time in a bacta tank, has enough scars that should have-might have-would have killed him. )

can accept it, and thus make the statement that they are similar in this.

but.

but.

he thinks more about kenobi and the 212th, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands folding, brow furrowed. remembers the times kenobi walks past his dying men without a glance in their direction, or the times he has let them down - figuratively, yes, but mace has read the reports. he knows kenobi’s capabilities, knows he could have caught charger, but instead watched him fall onto that electromine, choosing instead to just quip about it.

cody runs the 7th systems army. it’s an ongoing joke in the gar, given that he co-runs it with kenobi, who is so much more often than not with the 501st or off with his old padawan and his grandpadawan.

but windu knows the truth of it. has read reports cody has written at two in the morning, has seen kenobi’s signature clearly forged on reports and statuses and supply forms ( and had stak ask about it, concerned at first that it might be a security issue. cody had smiled, looking tired, and said that at this point it was just more efficient than trying to play catch-up with kenobi or hounding him for days to sign the damn things himself. )

so mace noticed, and he let it slip.

ponds has -  _had_ \- talked to him about it, too. the times they’d be on leave and cody would fall asleep standing up on the gunship out, body crashing the instant it had permission to. or the times he didn’t make it to leave at all, covering the paperwork for kenobi’s mistakes or on another mission with him.

skywalker had noticed, too, even dense as he was.  _do you love cody,_ he had asked kenobi, once, and kenobi had laughed the question off.  _i love how much easier he makes my life,_ he had told his old padawan, patting his shoulder and leaving skywalker dissatisfied with that answer.

( windu, too, but for a different reason. )

windu for the reason that … he’s not sure that’s untrue. he hears about cody from kenobi whenever cody does something for him.  _makes his life easier._ complains whenever cody pushes him to get sleep after avoiding it for a week and a half in a row, without thinking about how being sleep-deprived and trying to fight like that might affect his troops. jokes about cody worrying over his injuries in the field without giving a thought to the fact that his life is literally valued at more than his commander’s.

ponds is windu’s friend. he has been honest with him, and they have known each other since the battel of geonosis.

(  _you value our lives, right?_ ponds had asked, day two into a long hyperspace journey into the outer rim. mace, startled, had answered in the affirmative. ponds smiled wanly, looking tired.  _many of yours say so, but they don’t … show it. we’re so often left for dead. the effort your brothers give to save mine is minimal, sometimes._ )

windu puts his men first, above himself. has even won the ire of skywalker and kenobi before, when he let the battle grind to a halt to send out the search and rescue teams, make sure as many of their men were as safe as possible.

kenobi’s casualty rate is among the top ten in the gar. nowhere near krell’s or skywalker’s, but it’s … up there. ( kenobi’s  _specifically._ battles led by him. when he is gone and cody leads, the numbers reflect that. )

so.

so, mace can accept the sentiment, and state that they are similar in this.

he thinks of how tired cody looks. he thinks of the mourning ceremonies the 212th holds in private, worried they will be considered a waste of time by their general. he thinks of the naturally-born seperatist leaders kenobi had as prisoners and made more of an effort to save than his own men.

he thinks of geonosis, of the citadel, of jabiim.

he thinks of kenobi’s false surrender on christophsis.

and slowly, he shifts his knee out from under kenobi’s hand, looking away from the other master.

_i may know how you feel._

‘ no, ‘ he says, frowning ever so slightly. ‘ i don’t think you do. ‘


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: remember, we're madly in love, so it's alright to kiss me anytime you feel like it

he’s  _still_ not going to get over the beard being gone. 

it’s been a good few weeks since the rako hardeen thing, and general kenobi looks like… well, anyone  _but_ general kenobi, missing the swooping ginger hair and distinctive beard, hair currently short to his head and closer to a light brown. 

it means he and cody ( or some of the other 212th ) ends up running recon or spy missions a lot of the time, taking advantage of general kenobi looking like a complete stranger. cody isn’t specially trained in undercover missions, and he doesn’t actually think he’s any  _good_  at them, but that’s not stopped his general from taking him on - this is the fourth, so far, where it’s just been the two of them. 

they’re sitting on opposite sides of a table in an outdoor cafe, kenobi lounging in a way that made him appear almost  _feline_ in nature, all easy grace and eyes that wandered but with confidence and a sort of  _regality_. which is also sort of feline - it’s a look like he is ruler of all he surveys, and he knows this, but at the moment, it’s too much of an inconvenience to  _act_ on it. 

‘ you’re staring, cody. ‘ 

‘ hm? simply playing the part, ben. ‘

( it’s the name they’ve gone with for several of these, which has led to two separate occasions of a very tired cody calling kenobi ‘beneral’, which has sent commander tano into fits of glee both times. cody doesn’t get paid enough for this damn job. )

there’s a smile rolling across kenobi’s face in the same lazy way that storm clouds breach the horizon; at once a subtle progression and just suddenly there. 

( and, like an oncoming storm, it usually meant  _some_ kind of trouble was coming with it, the pessimistic side of cody tacked on. a deeper part of cody, one he was currently vehemently trying to ignore, tacked on that  _also_ like an oncoming storm, cody found it beautiful. )

kenobi leans forwards, acting as if he  _were_ about to stroke his beard and then frowning, resting his chin on his hand and propping his elbow on the table. as always, he’s magnetizing to cody, who leans back in a little bit without even really noticing it. 

‘ remember, we’re madly in love, so it’s alright to kiss me anytime you feel like it . ‘ 

he’s saying it with that sophisticated accent; a little bit of a drawl and rounded-out vowels, and he’s saying it with an uplift to his mouth; he’s teasing. cody thinks it’s secondhand nature for the man to flirt; he does it without noticing he’s doing it, easy as talking. 

for once, though, it’s  _his_ turn to surprise his general. 

( he can tell it’s a surprise because he’s suddenly so very close to kenobi’s eyes, and sees every minute detail of them widening, the dark flecks that seemed to fade in and out with the light and the steel in them. )

( he can tell it’s a surprise because he feels the sharp intake of kenobi’s breath as their mouths press together, and for a moment he feels like laughing, because it seems almost like obi-wan is taking the air from his lungs. there’s irony in there, somewhere. )

it was a surprise; teasing and cody’s push back, their back-and-forth dynamic. 

it should end with cody pulling back and the both of them laughing, resuming the conversation about the plans they’re here to find.

it should end with some propriety; he is a general and he is a commander and they are halves of a whole but not so like  _this;_ he is a jedi and he is a clone and they are different levels, he is not allowed attachments and he is not a person, and - 

it should end there. 

( it doesn’t. )


	4. Chapter 4

he’s rebuilt this house three times. 

the first was when he bought it, barely a hole in the ground, but cheap and out of the way enough that no one would ever ask questions - he’d sighed, but started moving everything in, the few possessions that he had, selling his starfighter and then, a bit later, regrettably, r6. for the first few nights, he’d slept outside, on his gar-issue bedroll, and looked up at the harsh desert sky. 

( one time he woke up from - not a nightmare, and that was the problem. ) he was in the same bedroll, under a different crisp sky, with dust in his hair and aching hands like he had now, but there was a bacta patch over his left shoulder, and his nose was resting in wiry black hair, an arm slung over his waist and someone else’s body heat compensating for the night air. his commander’s head buried in the crook of a neck, and that too-familiar accent mumbling ‘ ‘s not morning yet, sir. ‘ 

( sure enough, when he sits up, gasping for breath, the first of the binary suns hasn’t even begun to peek over the horizon. )

( he sleeps inside the half-finished house the next day, even when the sand blows into his tunic and sticks in his beard, almost crusting his eyes shut. )

the second had been due to a huge sandstorm. everyone had been affected by it in some way or another - he’d actually helped owen and beru patch up the moisture collectors, terse silence existing between him and own as luke sped by, reaching the age now where running came more easily to him than walking. 

the next day, he returned from mos eisley with a few bartered-for bits and pieces to find a small barrel of water just inside his newly repaired door with the lars crest on it, the holes in his roof patched. he doesn’t thank owen openly - he doesn’t think he’d appreciate it. 

the third, he’s sure his past self might criticize him for, but - he’s taking down part of one wall and mixing up new duracrete for new bricks. but … he’s crushing the comm the rebels keep trying to contact him with, and dropping it into the first brick. in the second, a piece of transparisteel with a blaster bolt hole through it, taken from the temple after operation knightfall. in the third, his old gar gauntlet, dismantled to make it easier. 

in the end, the only things from the past he’s unable to part with are cody’s helmet, pressing it to his forehead for almost half an hour before deciding to set it in the trunk rather than dismantle it, and anakin’s lightsaber. 

he thinks it’s a fitting addition to the house. underneath the duracrete, there’s an old war story there. 

the same can be said for the name  _old ben._

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: time won't let me show what i want to show

war leaves many things unsaid. 

true, death is the easiest explanation for this, separating lovers before a confession has time to bloom naturally, assassinating leaders before they can give a speech they were planning, a soldier being shot down before he can thank his brother-in-arms for saving his life minutes ago. 

but there’s other ways it tears out a bloody silence. schisms and political opinion dividing a family. forced exile or emigration cutting bonds. time being eaten up by the war, people’s lives being taken both literally and figuratively. 

in commander cody’s case, there is no  _time._

he’s a soldier, born and bred. there’s no way to wonder  _well if things were different -_ because there’s no possible  _other_ for him. if there had been no war, there wouldn’t have been a cody - and no general kenobi, either. sure, there would be an obi-wan, but how different would he be?

he considers saying it on ryloth, watching obi-wan sway the gutkurr to his will, sheer force of concentration turning the beasts eerily silent. but they’re in the middle of a battle and it would lack propriety, so he just hands back the lightsaber and stands by his general’s side. 

he almost says it before they land on saleucami, when they chase grievous and his general is nearly knocked out into space, cody letting go of the wall with one hand and grabbing his, obi-wan’s hand tight around his hand and wrist, his life quite literally in cody’s hands. but there’s no time then, either. ( the vacuum of space absorbs sound. maybe he did say it, then, but only the force and cody would know. )

 _time won’t let me show what i want to show,_ he tells boil, voice dry and tight as they ride the gunship behind general kenobi’s, cody’s eyes tracing the noseart.  _it always feels like just - one second too late._

he almost says it on geonosis. he almost says it on umbara. he almost says it every time he stands by obi-wan’s side on the bridge, every time they’re in the same gunship together, every time he supports his general’s weight, arm under his shoulder, or listens to him complain about general skywalker. 

he almost says it on utapau. 

too late, too late, too late, too late, too late, too late. 

_too late._


	6. Chapter 6

the siege is hitting the one-month mark in three days, and all obi-wan wants to do is get off this force-forsaken planet, where everything is damp and his head hurts from the sound of blaster bolts, grating and unrelenting. 

if nothing else, nights have become easier. the  _vode_ have taken to sleeping in the gunships, in the tanks, anywhere there’s dry space, and after about a week or so of fighting, obi-wan had joined them. ( well. one of them, at least. ) if nothing else, nights now are dry and warm. 

( things sometimes become hazy, underneath his cloak in the back chamber of the gunship, where he rests his head on his commander’s chest, cody’s chin tucked over his head and arms wrapped around him. for warmth, they’ll both claim, if asked. and it’s true, in a way, but it doesn’t explain the bubble of warmth rising in obi-wan’s chest when he wakes up one morning to see  _sunlight,_ for once, streaming through the slats of the gunship door, illuminating cody’s sharply-lined face, eyes still shut peacefully, the morning casting his scar into impressive contrast. )

as he always does, cody blinks awake a few moments after him, somehow always managing to  _sense_ that obi-wan is awake, no matter how still he tries to hold. 

cody groans and stretches, sighing as he rests his head against his general again - there’s still quite some time before the two of them need to be up, and this is a comfortable place to be. he can hear obi-wan’s heartbeat, quiet but steady, and smell him - the mud of the planet, yes, but also tea and the faint sense of  _ozone_ all the jedi had to them. like starlight and raw power, and cody nosed briefly against obi-wan’s skin, looking for that smell now and laughing once after a moment. 

obi-wan arches an auburn eyebrow at him, mouth curling wryly at one side in amusement. ‘ do feel free to share the joke, commander. ‘

cody strokes over obi-wan’s shoulder for a moment, voice still rough with disuse and the early time. ‘ i thought jedi weren’t meant to have possessions. ‘ something sad, unreadable, crosses his general’s face. 

‘ i don’t own you, cody. ‘

 _yes you do, in every way that matters,_ some bitter part of him that is cc-2224 whispers.  _my life, my vode, we are numbers under your command. you helped the republic buy my existence; in what sense do you_ not  _own me?_

 _yes you do, in every way that matters,_ a deeper part of him says, quietly - all cody. no programming or kamino-built loyalty is behind the way that he  _is_ obi-wan’s, just as obi-wan is  _his_ general. cody would follow him into hell without question. 

but either answer would lack propriety, and shatter this moment, so cody just hums and lets his nose drift to obi-wan’s hair. battlefield dust, weariness, and ozone. his general. 


	7. Chapter 7

‘ get some sleep, general. the clankers’ll still be here by daybreak, and you could use the rest. ‘

‘ what about you, cody? ‘

‘ i’m fine, sir. i had my sleep shift already. ‘

he can  _see_ the exhaustion almost like a physical cloud hanging over general kenobi, in the heavy way he carries himself and the dark circles under his eyes, and obi-wan sinks gracelessly besides cody. there’s nowhere good in this rocky terrain, all sharp and jagged, to set up a bedroll, so most of the  _vode_  have been sleeping leaning on each other for support and warmth. 

cody quietly unbuckles most of his armor, bar his gauntlets and boots, as obi-wan accepts a ration bar from waxer, eating it almost mechanically, eyes unfocused, and wonders how long it really has been since the general slept last. he’s seen obi-wan go almost  _weeks_ without sleep and not show signs of fatigue, but everyone has to give out some time. the jedi aren’t superhuman, after all. 

there’s a heavy weight leaning on his shoulder, and he smiles slightly, realizing general kenobi has fallen asleep on his shoulder, half-finished ration bar still loosely clutched in one hand. 

gently, cody eases the food out of his hand, handing it back to waxer, and shifts, so general kenobi is lying with his head across his thighs. he’s … cody would never vocalize it, for fear of sounding ridiculous, but he’s proud the general trusts him to almost  _sit vigil_  over him. there aren’t many people the general admits to weakness around. 

he’s startling slightly as obi-wan, in his sleep, holds cody’s forearm and hand close to his chest, almost like a cadet with a comfort object. 

a memory - obi-wan and general skywalker, on the field, obi-wan’s mouth in a thin line of warning as skywalker grows agitated, as he is wont to do.

_attachment is not the jedi way, anakin,_ obi-wan says in his memories, resting a hand heavily on anakin’s shoulder, not flinching at the look full of anger-fear-burning anakin gives in return, that so often adorns his face. 

cody gently strokes through obi-wan’s hair with his free hand, brushing it off of his face, and blacks picking up some of the dust and shrapnel that has settled there. he’s smiling, so softly and absently enough that he doesn’t even realize it, watching obi-wan hold onto his arm as he sleeps, breath slowing. 

‘ are you sure, sir? ‘ he murmurs. it’s not something he’d ask were obi-wan awake to hear it, but he asks it fondly, and continues to keep watch until the sun rises. 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

‘ this weapon is your life, anakin. you must never lose it. ‘

cody waited until obi-wan had finished addressing general skywalker and had dismissed him before coming up to his side, quietly unclipping obi-wan’s lightsaber from his belt and handing it to him with a wry half-smile. 

‘ sir, are you really one to talk? ‘

obi-wan smiled, taking his lightsaber back from cody and flipping it once in his hand, holstering it. 

‘ my problem with anakin is not that he loses his weapon, it’s that he lets it go in situations he has no plan for, or no way to recover it. ‘

cody raises an eyebrow slightly. 

‘ and you, sir? ‘

obi-wan claps him on the shoulder once with a smile. 

‘ i can be safe in knowing that, as ever, my life is in your  _very_  capable hands, commander. ‘

he’s turning back to the strategy table, then, beginning to point out to general skywalker where his troops would be making a flanking attack around the droid army, and leaving cody, for a moment, speechless. 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

it takes obi-wan a good three weeks to learn that he doesn’t  _actually_ know mando’a. he does know  _mandalorian,_ yes, but - the dialect he learned from? with? satine is new mandalorian; all bastardized and smooth around the sharp edges traditional mando’a has.

he learns it in cody’s perplexed expression, the first time he tries greeting him; he learns it too in the way waxer laughs quietly, later, and tells him that cody was  _kote,_ obi-wan’s smooth corellian accent and knowledge of the subdialect smoothing down the edges like taking sandpaper to a wooden block. he considers trying again, but goes to say  _commander kote_ and finds the words stuck in his throat.

cody, cody, his name is cody, and therefore cody it stays.

he learns it too when he reunites with the duchess, silently glad that this time there’s no rat-tail and stumbling padawan hands and eager puppy eyes; but there is the harshness of duty, too, and the understanding between them that things cannot be the same as they were. 

the clones are joking, as they so often are, their laughter familiar to kenobi - rough and deep and  _comforting,_ so often a spark of brightness in the middle of a battle or close to death. 

satine passes them by without a second thought, but he sees her nose wrinkle at their mando’a.  _it is improper,_ she tells him later.  _a language for a warrior culture. we have refined it for our pacifism._ no more words for glory-in-battle or for commando-mindset or  _shereshoy._ they are a warrior culture no longer. they do not use a warrior culture’s words. 

( obi-wan has to admit, though, there’s something that stirs in his heart when he overhears the vode an that the new mandalorian language just doesn’t do. it’s pacifist, but that’s … all. )


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: there seems to be a problem

cody is sure that in  _other_ units, the clone commanders didn’t feel like the force was offering them an ultimatum every single week; either their adventures this time were going to kill  _them,_ or cody would, for the plan that got them into this shit in the first place. 

even in the 501st, with skywalker’s renowned impulsivity - captain rex had his complaints, sure, but  _commander_ appo, now, had seemed to levy enough support that when skywalker wanted to go on  _that type_ of mission, he’d go alone or with cody’s general. 

which was going to give cody an aneurysm. 

right now, he’s tugging his helmet off, wiping the utapauan dust and his own sweat out of his eyes and squinting against the harsh sunlight up at his general - it seems to cast a halo around his auburn hair, which was that  _slight_ state of ruffled up that let cody know he’d almost died. 

( he made a note to criticize kenobi for that later, once they finished the charge. later, they could hide in the back of one of the gunships like cadets spreading gossip, and cody could carefully brush his general’s hair back into place with his fingers, their noses nearly touching, and - he shook himself out of his reverie.  _later._ )

obi-wan took his lightsaber back from cody’s hand with the force, letting it float back into his palm, and cody resisted the urge to shake his head fondly. ( he didn’t tell his general, but he could  _feel it,_ sometimes, when he used the force around him. it felt warm and familiar, like the coruscanti sun, or the slight drawl to kenobi’s accent. )

( he supposed the force was energy, and energy was heat, after all. commander tano had been adrenalin-hot, when you could be on an ice planet but your heart raced so fast your skin was burning to the touch. general skywalker was  _heturam,_ spice burning in your mouth in almost painful amounts. )

kenobi charged up the hill like a knight in a cadet’s storytime book, and cody watched him, faint admiration and affection, always affection, hidden underneath his helmet. 

then his comlink rings, and he, and  _cody_ is erased. 

( true and not-true. he is not-cody enough to aim the gun at his general, but he is still-cody enough to give the coordinates specifically a few seconds late, when obi-wan has already progressed higher, and to put mish, who just sustained a concussion, in the gunner’s seat. )

(  _there seems to be a problem,_ boil tells him, grimacing, hours later.  _we can’t find the body anywhere. the chancellor doesn’t like it._ )

( true and not-true. he is not-cody enough to search for obi-wan’s body like a bloodhound, but he is still-cody enough yet to convince the not-cody part of him that they need to find a  _body,_ not a living person, and he is still-cody enough, walking around, to feel the coruscanti sun beating on his shoulders even down in the utapauan depths. )


	11. Chapter 11

cody has been in more gunship crashes than he can remember. ( the number of concussions  _received_ in said crashes lends itself to that problem; after a certain point they begin to blend together. )

there are always a few things that remain consistent, whether it be jabiim or umbara or geonosis or felucia or mimban. 

the first thing is a sinking in your gut. cody, like many veterans, can often  _feel_ it, right before something is about to go to every one of the correllian hells. a low, sour feeling in his stomach, usually followed by some sort of explosion. 

the next is the initial hit. the pilot will be shot to the head, the controls will overload, one of the wings will be blown clean off, hyena droids will tear through the wirings - but universally, there’s that one first jarring blow, rattling the ship. 

then, the descent. clinging onto the rows of handles and trying to brace yourself for impact, the air whistling by in a streak of fire and color, the blasterfire surrounding reduced to a dull thrum of background noise as the ground rushed closer to you, hoping that the fuel tank wouldn’t blow on impact or get a hit to it and send them all to the manda. 

right before hitting the ground, there’s a moment of weightlessness. for just a second, a feeling like floating. 

and then, impact. metal crumpling, the gunship screaming along the ground, bracing yourself and trying to keep yourself in place so that it wasn’t your body, slammed too-hard by the gunship’s momentum, that killed your brother. the smell of fuel, the horrible screeching of metal grinding down. 

retrospectively, he thinks, falling in love is more of a crash landing than anything else. 

the sinking feeling must have happened . . . what, when he had been assigned? he and rex had been issued to kenobi and skywalker around the same time, and he remembered telling rex  _he seems like a good man, but i’m . . . worried, for some reason._ rex snorted, and told him he was being paranoid. 

the initial hit was ryloth. the gutkurr overwhelmed them, bowling over some of the vod’e, and then - sudden silence, almost eerily so. the creatures were drawing  _to_ kenobi, somehow entranced by him, and he was getting them to follow him into a dead end. they shot out the bridge, kenobi got himself out, and cody carefully handed him back his weapon, kenobi smiling at him for it.

in the moment before the sewer grate rattled, there was a sudden moment of realization, for cody.  _oh,_ he thought.  _oh no._

the descent was three years in the making. 

on utapau, the war was ending. he could feel it in the cool air, from the moment kenobi pinged him and said that grievous was dead. grievous and dooku were both dead, and they were already halfway through routing the droids here. who knew if the war would even last another week? 

( the exchange was like a hundred others. tired smiles, but this time, relief, in cody’s shoulders and in kenobi’s. whatever came after this, the war was almost  _over._ )

there’s no screech of metal or fuel-smell when impact is made, but there’s a white-hot feeling behind his eyes as his limbs fall out of his control, the tinny echo of  _commandercodythetimehascome,_  and the recoil of tank fire. 

**Author's Note:**

> in regards to why cody didn't attend obi-wan's "funeral" in the rako hardeen arc, dave filoni stated "in order to keep the nature of obi-wan’s mission as secret as possible, the jedi council assigned cody to a mission so he could not attend. a fact that did not sit well with the commander."


End file.
